Contributor

Lilian Barber

2 published articles

Lilian Barber was born in Germany and left that country under duress in 1939 with her parents, and with only what they could wear and carry, just ahead of the Holocaust. The family spent a year in the London slums before being able to enter the United States in 1940. At some point during her early years, Lilian became consumed by an almost insane desire for the companionship of a dog, but due to the family’s strained living conditions, she was not able to have one until she grew up and had a life of her own. She acquired her first Italian Greyhound in 1966. Lilian has lived with from one to 18 IGs at any given time ever since, and she has bred nearly 100 AKC champions under the La Scala kennel name, most of these Lilian showed and finished herself after being part of the dog fancy had helped her to shake off her shyness and tendency to be clumsy at any kind of sport. Lilian was approved in 1989 to judge Italian Greyhounds and has judged Specialties in Italy and Australia as well as in the United States, including the National Specialty in 2003 & 2010. She was invited to judge in Japan in 2013. Lilian has written four books about the IG and one about her life with and without dogs titled, My Mother Never Taught Me Songs. Lilian has been the IG Breed Columnist for the AKC Gazette since 1977 as well as a writer of a regular column in The Italian Greyhound Magazine. She has served on the Judges’ Education Committee for the Italian Greyhound Club of America, was one of the creators of the Illustrated Standard for the IG, and is a past President of the IGCA. Most of all, Lilian says that she is completely smitten with this breed and could not imagine ever again living without at least one or two of them.